placenamesMeelick
Míleac
At Friarsland beside the Shannon, the former friary church preserves older stonework within a building altered for parish worship.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Míleac · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Meelick · English · main form
Place & story
Bonaventure Francis Reynolds
The Irish Franciscans’ institutional history names Father Bonaventure Francis Reynolds as Meelick’s last friar. His death in November 1852 left no successor available for the community. The same account describes four friars there during much of the eighteenth century, falling to two in the nineteenth. Repairs to the church in 1832 preceded this final decline. The religious community’s ending and the building’s later use were therefore distinct developments. [2]
Windows from different periods
Saint Francis’s Church was reroofed around 1855 for parish use, according to the architectural inventory. Its south wall retains sixteenth-century windows with curved, ogee-shaped heads. The east window and entrance belong to later alterations, although their forms echo medieval architecture. Roofless friary buildings remain attached to the church, and older grave slabs were incorporated in a boundary wall. These features preserve several phases of rebuilding within the same site. [3]
Geographic information
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Meelick. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Meelick, County Galway: former Franciscan friary · Irish Franciscans
- Saint Francis’s Catholic Church, NIAH30410823 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.